8 key trends in the games industry from The Game Business

Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Game Business Chris Dring spoke to a room packed full of game industry professionals about his game industry forecast for 2026 at Game Republic Trends and Opportunities event hosted at Manchester Metropolitan University on 28th January. Gerald Allen Antoine, a student studying for his MSc Computer Games Development at Manchester Metropolitan University summarises 8 of the key trends highlighted at the event as well as few extras at the end including the Chris’ predictions for the biggest game titles. The event formed part of Game Republic’s events and activities for 2026 supported by Official Partners Red Kite Games, Xsolla and Double Eleven.

1. The Niche Will Dominate

Chris’ first prediction, supported by the success of Expedition 33, Arc Raiders, Dark Souls, and Elden Ring, was that niche games will dominate the market in the coming year. To illustrate his point, he quoted Shams Jorjani, CEO of Arrowhead Games Studios, who said “the slogan for the studio is ‘a game for everyone is a game for no one’, so we did not set out to design Helldivers for a wide audience. We made it for a niche audience, and our belief is that if you make an uncompromising game experience for a very specific audience you have the ability to resonate far outside of it.”

2. That Extends to Consoles

Chris’ second prediction was an extension of his first one—the niche will dominate in the console space. Chris said this prediction comes from the end of the Console Wars and the impact of the lack of competition. PS5 sales are tracking behind PS4 and Xbox is becoming “a big third-party publisher that also makes some hardware” according to Former President of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aimé. Because of this stagnation among the major players, space has opened up for niche devices like the Analogue 3D, ROG Xbox Ally, and Nex Playground, and Chris predicted we will see more like this in the next year as consoles continue to shift and change.

“there is a new wave of studios building AAA games with smaller teams and smaller budgets. They’re ripping up past processes, reforging past tools, but still delivering games developed with an incredible attention to detail.” Chris Dring – The Game Business

3. AAA Will Survive in a New Form

The next prediction Chris shared was that games like Arc Raiders will become the new face of AAA games. With investors scared to invest in AAA games and the biggest games of the year coming out of the indie and AA sectors, Chris told the audience “there is a new wave of studios building AAA games with smaller teams and smaller budgets. They’re ripping up past processes, reforging past tools, but still delivering games developed with an incredible attention to detail.” Chris said “I have to imagine you can get three or four Arc Raiders for the cost of one Battlefield 6. That means that [these developers] can take more risks, be more experimental, and make mistakes” in contrast to the larger AAA companies that are spending hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on their games and are under more pressure to get things right every time.

4. PC and Console Games Will Work on Mobile. Occasionally.

While games like PUBG and Delta Force are doing well, PC and console ports on mobile phones are struggling, but Chris thinks the sales numbers for mobile ports of games like Resident Evil 4, Hitman World of Assassination, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and Prince of Persia do not tell the whole story. He pointed out that technical requirements and consumer tastes inherently limit the number of people who could be playing these games, but he predicted that in a near-future world where PC and console developers release mobile ports for their games that don’t demand the highest end mobile devices, we will see meaningful sales and revenue from mobile ports, particularly from regions like India and Southeast Asia where PC and console penetration is limited. However, Chris points out that developers will need to make concerted efforts to successfully port their games to mobile. To illustrate that point, he quoted Frank Gibeau, President of Zynga, who said “there’s a lot of nuance in how you have to redesign the content in the player experience so that it maximizes what mobile brings to bear. [If] you just bring it over and play it as you would on a PlayStation, it doesn’t work.”

While not all games will manage this well, Chris predicted that some will.

“It (AI) can create content, but it cannot create art and the reason why is because that invariably requires the human experience, and it can simply synthesize that, and what I see happening is that this birth of AI, this burgeoning industry of it, is actually going to drive people to the authentic” Voice Actor Troy Baker

5. AI Will Lead to a Demand for the Authentic

“when it comes to art, I do believe we’re gonna see an increase in demand for original, authentic human experiences. That’s my thesis. AI looks backwards. It doesn’t look forward.” Chris Dring, The Game Business

Chris focused his AI-related predictions to the impact it will have on consumers. The viewpoint he resonated with the most in regards to AI came from voice actor Troy Baker who said “It can create content, but it cannot create art and the reason why is because that invariably requires the human experience, and it can simply synthesize that, and what I see happening is that this birth of AI, this burgeoning industry of it, is actually going to drive people to the authentic”. Chris elaborated by saying that AI apps will have a profound impact in terms of content on mobile devices, citing the fact that non-game apps overtook game apps on smartphones in terms of revenue for the first time last year primarily due to the revenue generated by AI apps. However, Chris predicted that “when it comes to art, I do believe we’re gonna see an increase in demand for original, authentic human experiences. That’s my thesis. AI looks backwards. It doesn’t look forward.”

6. Gen X Will Become Our Most Important Audience

Chris predicted that one of the biggest drivers for the industry in the near future will be the over 60 demographic. He explained that we are about to see the first significant retired generation of gamers who will have both money and time to spend on games. He cited a statistic from the ESA which recently reported that 28% of US gamers are now 50 or above, which is an 11% increase over the past 20 years.

7. Game Streaming Will Remain Smallish

Chris posited that there are two key obstacles to widespread use of game streaming. The first was illustrated in a quote from Matthew Ball who said “yes, all of the technical problems that we’re facing with cloud game streaming are improving, but the chips on our phones are improving faster”. This means that rather than streaming games, consumers will simply install them on their mobile devices. The second obstacle to game streaming according to Chris is the business model. While it makes financial sense for us to pay a subscription for TV shows, the average person consumes games at a much slower rate, making the costs involved infeasible for all but the hardcore gamers that consume games at a higher rate. With this in mind, Chris’ prediction was that streaming will largely be used for streaming games to other screens, e.g., streaming from your Xbox to your ROG Ally, but it will not be the primary way that people play games in the future.

8. We’ll Master Capitalizing on Movies and TV

“video games have become the new comic books in the TV industry right now”

Chris stated that “video games have become the new comic books in the TV industry right now,” and pointed to the massive success of Fallout to support his statement. He said the industry is getting smarter about how to capitalize on movies and TV shows and getting better at executing on the connections between linear and interactive media across IPs, especially now that game companies are getting involved in adaptations. He mentioned that we don’t need to have a new game out to capitalize on them, and he pointed out that Fallout is leading the way in this approach, pointing to their integration of a character from the Fallout TV show into the Fallout 76 live service game and other show elements appearing in the Fallout Shelter mobile game. Chris predicted that companies will learn from the example Fallout has set and mentioned the upcoming Tomb Raider live action series and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie as potential aspirants to the next big crossover phenomenon.

Predictions for the games industry in 2026

To finish his presentation, Chris let off a rapid-fire series of predictions that he could not cover fully in detail. They included the following:

China, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia will become the dominant creators of hit video games, ending the dominance of the West.
Global policy and legislation—particularly policies and legislation relating to online safety, consumer rights, digital fairness, AI, app stores, and game preservation—will take up more of our time, but it will be okay.
Black Holes (Roblox, Fortnight, TikTok and other things that take up a lot of the time of our consumers) are not going away, and the successful games will learn to lean into them.
Resident Evil Requiem, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, 007 First Light, Wolverine, The Duskbloods, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, The Blood of Dawnwalker, Reanimal, Phantom Blade II, and Pokémon Pokopia will be the biggest titles of 2026 aside from GTA 6.

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